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A groundbreaking, innovative exploration of what the ancient Greeks really believed

Did the Greeks believe in their mythology? This question implies other difficult ones concerning the meaning of belief. While knowing that Theseus never slew the Minotaur, the Greeks were still capable of believing in the existence of Theseus, of crafting a genealogy for him and assigning him a place in history. This apparently contradictory process, the application of reason to myth, prompts legendary archaeologist Paul Veyne’s meditation on the nature of “truth.” Beginning with the example of the Greeks’ attitude toward their myths, Veyne argues that truth is not found, but created, as is history. His discussion reveals the historical quality of the imagination and its role in the constitution of a cultural tradition.

A manifesto for liberating desire from the grip of capital and colonial violence in Palestine

Could a psychoanalytic theory of masochism help us to understand the politics of protest? A socially engaged psychoanalysis of 2024’s widespread student uprisings in support of Palestine, Divest posits that masochism, as theorized by Freud in his later years, is a fundamental structure at the heart of anticapitalist and anticolonial resistance. Conceptualizing masochism as a radical form of divestment, Steven Swarbrick theorizes the affective economies of solidarity, self-sacrifice, and collective struggle. Through vivid film readings and sharp critique of state and university violence, Swarbrick explores the emancipatory potential of masochism in the protest movement and the sadistic machinery of capitalist governance it has laid bare.

Divest is both a politically urgent manifesto and a theoretical companion to the global movement for Palestinian liberation. Asserting that the politics of left-wing solidarity must reckon with the libidinal investments that sustain both power and resistance, this bold volume argues that divestment from global capitalism may begin with a revolution in our psychic attachments.

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